Mirror
by dreamer18
Summary: ...the best of you seen through another's eyes...VincentxYuffie fic
1. Proem:Vincent

Note: This is a re-post and yes, for those of you who do know me, *****waves* Yo. I'm back, and I'm writing again…I finally have a break from the stress of my somewhat hectic college life. It's nice to be writing again, surprisingly, so heres the fic again, "Mirror".

Disclaimer: There's no way on earth I'd ever own a company like Sqauresoft, though if I did *wicked grin* The world would be mine…Nyahahahahaha…Meaning that the characters Vincent and Yuffie and any other Final Fantasy character mentioned in this fic I do not own and yadda, yadda, yadda…    

Proem\ Chapter 1: Vincent

King Of Pain

~Sting

There's a little black spot on the sun today

That's my soul up there

It's the same old thing as yesterday

That's my soul up there

There's a black hat caught in a high tree top

That's my soul up there

There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop

That's my soul up there

I have stood here before in the pouring rain

With the world turning circles running 'round my brain

I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign

But it's my destiny to be the king of pain

There's a fossil that's trapped in a high cliff wall

There's a dead salmon frozen in a waterfall

There's a blue whale beached by a springtide's ebb

There's a butterfly trapped in a spider's web

There's a king on a throne with his eyes torn out

There's a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt

There's a rich man sleeping on a golden bed

There's a skeleton choking on a crust of bread

There's a red fox torn by a huntsman's pack

There's a black winged gull with a broken back

There's a little black spot on the sun today

It's the same old thing as yesterday

I have stood here before in the pouring rain

With the world turning circles running 'round my brain

I guess I always thought you could end this reign

But it's my destiny to be the king of pain...

I'll always be king of pain...

I'd been called many a name by people...

...vampire...

...freak...

...monster...

My pale white skin, the red eyes and the metal arm the hung by my side. Yes, I appeared the part they set for me, though what was I? I myself didn't know the answer- so unobtrusively I searched then, for the answers that eluded me. 

And at times, I'd go to the depths of insanity, wracking my brain for the solutions that weren't to be found. Other times, I'd sit by the warm fire in quiet contemplation, brooding my demise.

It is and was a dark and bitter world we lived in, none the worse for it. And one has to learn to watch oneself else we be swallowed whole and chewed upon, the sadistic world dredging it's macabre willies on you. That's always how the world's been...as far back as I can remember...

Of my childhood, I remember little or rather, care to talk nothing of it at all. For even then, I'd always been alone. I remember begging in the streets, my scrawny limbs faint with hunger, my head spinning for the want of food, my mouth pining for the blue that runs in streams. A peasant boy with nothing to his name and a name I didn't have either. 

Of my father and mother, I knew nothing of either...I knew nothing of how it all begun, the hunger, the loneliness and the great, great weight of the world upon my unstable shoulders. The moment was broken though, when one day, a washwoman took me in, seeing me sprawled by the reeds of the river bank, a boy unconscious and touched by death.

She cared for me, feed me, sheltered me- became my caretaker, my mother and yet I never found out her real name. But, she gave me mine- Vincent, Vincent Valentine. And from that day, I belonged to someone, I became my own person, I had an identity. I became special, because when one is given a name by another, they become connected- a bond is formed that cannot be broken. 

And I too, gave her a name, it was mother, a name that meant much to us both- it filled both the gaps in our hearts- our loneliness. We became mother and son and we were happy.  

Though of course, there were problems,

Schooling for one, I went to school like all children must at my age, though even then, I was looked upon with dislike and contempt. I grew to hate school, hated the eyes that watched me, I hated them...all of them...

Though my fondness for learning kept me from skipping out on classes. My curiosity notwithstanding, I ate up volume after volume of books as my insatiable thirst for knowledge drove me to know everything I could. I'd finished reading the village library's archives by the time I turned 12.

I grew up fast, my days spent doing house chores, reading books and taking on jobs to help out mother. For her days were numbered, she was getting old and we both knew that she wouldn't last long. 

I miss her, she was precious to me…the one who had showed me a glimpse of what love was. I have her to thank for that grand lesson of life, may God bless her sweet soul.

I left the village then soon after she had passed away and though I swore not to, I held an attachment to the place. Despite my misgivings and strife- I would miss my village, for all the fond memories it brought me, few as they might be.

I traveled a bit before becoming established in the Shinra corporation and was soon promoted to an organization called the Turks because of my fighting capabilities and my sharp mind. In the Turks, it was good to have combat prowess and it was even better for one to have quick wits- it would buy you time to keep your life. For it was shady business dealing with them, you never knew when the blade would strike you from behind.

And it was there in my service to Shinra that I met Lucrecia. An extraordinary woman, if there ever was one- beautiful, smart, witty, compassionate. I fell in love with her instantly. Though as fate would have it, she belonged to another, Hojo, a brilliant scientist of Shinra who dealt with the manipulation of genetic structures. He was brilliant, if not, maybe a bit dented in the head. 

But then, no one can really draw a line between sane and insane, you have to change the border when you think it's right because no one else can... though I found out soon enough that the one that's insane is the world...

I screamed and screamed like a wild beast and clawed on the metal door in front of me despite the pain. My arm felt funny, like it was empty, my eyes felt as if they'd been ripped out and my skin felt sore...

I could hear the buzzing and crackling of machines outside despite my screaming. What was happening to Lucrecia? I wept, _God...what has she done? Giving her body over to a mad man like him?_ The last thing I had heard was her plaintative cry as she had been infused with dark fluid. She had been holding Hojo's hand till the end... till she died. I cried then, for her loss, for the emptiness inside of me and the uncanny coldness of my arm… I cried till exhaustion took me. 

I woke up though I knew not how long I slept and a name came... _Jenova_... somehow I felt that the name was important, that I should remember something about it but I couldn't. 

I soon became lost in a maddening cycle of nightmares, tormented by a state of delirium that kept creeping back in and forth. I was in a state of shock, as my body was weak, going through some kind of change. Hojo had done something to my body before dumping me here in this dark place. And it hurt, my body wracked with the excruciating pain, which was somewhere between being stretched and the feel of millions of needles piercing everywhere.

It was senseless, in the sense that my senses were too flooded to feel. I'd go mad at times, screaming and screaming, never knowing how long it was I did scream. My body hurt like hell, though I don't know then if that was it- whether it was the pain outside or inside that beat at me constantly. Though now that I think about it- it was the thoughts going inside my head that did it.

It drove me insane, the death of Lucrecia- the manner of it. The mutilation, the sick morbid fascination of Hojo as he desecrated her body. And through that all, I was made to watch- for he knew, he knew I loved her and that she was his solely. She loved him, though if he did love her back I knew not, knew not if he was too deep into his sick little twisted world to feel a thing, much less love someone. 

I didn't understand! How she could give her life for someone who might not even love her back. How she could still look into his eyes after all he had done to her and softly tell him she loved him. It was maddening! As the scene played over and over in my head and I could do nothing to avoid thinking of it.

Fortunately, my bodily pain left me, though my mind- was still stuck in the series of images that I had been left with. And by then, I had figured out that I was in some sort of box, a coffin I think. And I also knew better than to try to escape or to claw my way out. I had tried it hundreds of times already.

So, I just lay there in the darkness, trying to remember what it was like outside but then came to face again with the face again with the one thing I wanted to forget so bad....

Her head tilting to the right… 

her long silver hair cascading behind… 

…her perfect hands stained with blood

…she was dead…

…my Lucrecia…

…my beloved…

I'd weep, I'd laugh, I'd scream, though the world did not care nor hear. My world was dark- it was inside this coffin and there was no one here… and somehow, it wasn't that much different from what was outside. 

I slept. For how long, I don't know, except that I was still alive. This disappointed me a lot, for I had hoped to drift in to slumber, a deeper one, one of no waking. Death I welcomed yet even she turned her back on me. I was still alive and I had no grace to feel thankful for it… I was empty, as empty as the hollow of my arm.

And it was then that I'd given up hope of anyone ever opening the box that someone chanced upon it. 

A man with short blond spiky hair, wearing what looked to be a Soldier class A uniform. A woman with long brown hair, she had a nice smile. The other one was a girl with short brown hair kept back by a band, who never shut up, she kept on talking, talking and talking ...she was very annoying...

Note: Hope you liked the 1st chapter, haven't really written a fic in a while…much less a Final Fantasy one, this is a first actually, so if I screwed up with the Vincent POV, made him OC or something, tell me- your reviews would be extremely helpful… :3   


	2. Yuffie

Disclaimer: I don't own Vincent or Yuffie, Squaresoft does, though if they would be ever so generous, they could hand down a deed of legal ownership to lil ole me…hehe…I can dream can't I?

Mirror

~Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.

Whatever I see I swallow immediately

Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.

I am not cruel, only truthful --

The eye of a little god, four-cornered.

Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.

It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long

I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.

Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,

Searching my reaches for what she really is.

Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.

I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.

She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.

I am important to her. She comes and goes.

Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.

In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman

Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

Chapter 2: Yuffie

            I was looking around the place for some materia to snitch when Cloud opened the coffin. I bounded over, 

            " What's inside?" I quipped and annoyingly, the spiky headed jerk just motioned for me to come over to have a look.

            " Ewwww.... a dead man...yuck!" Well, it was really disgusting! Who on earth would leave a coffin in a great big mansion like this and leave a stinking corpse in it? 'Sides mansions like this are supposed to have treasure, or better yet, materia...I jumped back and yelled as an arm twitched and an eye opened.

            Cloud and Tifa stepped back in combat position- as the man pulled himself up to a sitting position, looking around him as if he'd been sleeping for ages...wait...that's a coffin...gulp...I drew my conformer...and braced myself...

            The man or vampire...whatever he was...slumped back into the coffin...

            Eh? I looked to Cloud and Tifa for any ideas and they shrugged their shoulders.

            ".... uhhhh...." came the sounds from the coffin...I think he's in pain...I stepped closer; peering over the dude- he's eyes were shut. He was very pale and had long flowy black hair, which I wanted to touch...

            He grabbed my hand mid-way and I yelped, his hand...it was in a metal cast...who the hell is this guy?

            "...where am I?" he asked in a soft uncertain voice. 

            " Shinra mansion. Looks like you've been here for quite some time..." Cloud proffered.

            "...yes..." his eyes were red, very pretty...Gawd! Yuffie what the hell are you thinking? They're freaky! I squirmed a bit and started kicking his shins,

            " Hey! You might wanna let go off my hand now! You're cutting off the circulation!" I pulled my hand away as soon as I felt his grip relax and stuck my tongue out at him.

            "...you're annoying..." he said in a dead-pan kinda voice....grrrrrrrrr....I started toward him, ready to pummel the obnoxious jerk when Tifa laid a restraining hand on my shoulder, shaking her head. Fine...I'll lay off the freak...for now...

            And that was pretty much how it all started out... Vincent with the red freaky eyes, who slept in coffins and smelled like mothballs (he did, believe me, and the whole village of Nibelheim could smell him for miles and miles) and me, Yuffie Kisaragi, young, beautiful and-

            .... whatever...

            *sniff* spoilsport...

            Anyway as you guys probably know, after that we just went places and saw stuff and saved the world from destruction, nothing big really. Just the usual things-blow-up-and-go-kaboom kinda thing till we kick some bad guys sorry ass and everything goes back to normal, nice and peaceful. Well, anyway, it's been three years since that whole thing with Cloud and the others and I'd finally come back to my native land, Wutai....

            And as much as I missed the place...I regretted returning _ Godo's been at my tail for days ever since I arrived...blabbing stuff like how Wutai needs a ruler, Wutai needs this,  Wutai needs that, Wutai needs...blah blah blah blah.... _ well, Yuffie needs some peace and quiet! Well, needless to say- I was annoyed, very annoyed...

            So I decided to take off again to the wilderness and maybe fight a couple of monsters or two, get a nice tan in Costa del sol and visit some of the gang *grin* picking up a couple of materia on the way of course. My father of course thought otherwise-

            " Where are you going? You just arrived!"

            " Away...away from you!"

            " But Wutai needs you, I'm growing old-"

            " Like you haven't been telling me that for the past few days, I swear! It's driving me nuts!! All the talk about babies and ruling and- GAH!!!!!"

            And this would be the time to stomp off into the forest with a pack slung over my shoulder and drowning out whatever the old fart was saying with my whistling. I didn't like being stuck in one place for too long, I'm a wanderer, a vagabond hell! An adventurer! Y'know? When the tingly feeling of wanderlust kicks in and you know you just have to go to a new place or you'd be driven insane... 

            Well, yeah, it's either that or i just got a hell of case of athletes foot goin on...on second thought _ yuck! Fungus, gross...

            Anyway, when I was a good distance away from Wutai I stumbled...

            And realized it wasn't a shrub or some stupid tree root or a rock or anything I expected it to be-

            It was a man, bleeding like anything with numerous wounds all over that it was a wonder he was alive and that I even recognized him to be human. I rushed to his side, carefully turning him over and I caught my breath...

            ".... Vinny?"                  

Note: ;_; what's goin to happen to Vinny? Goin to post Chapter 3 soon, so just wait up for it...Oh, and once again, reviews would be much appreciated :3       


	3. Dream

Disclaimer: and again, I do not own Vincent, Yuffie or any other character in this whacked up story- Squaresoft does...though how I wish I did own Vincent and Sephiroth and Cloud and Squall and Irvine and...

Note: this one's for stick-chan T_T whose relentless pestering kept me typing and typing and typing and typing...anyhow, this chapter wouldn't be around without it- so arigatou stick-chan : 3 *pat pat pat* 

A Dream within a Dream

~Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow-

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if Hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of golden sand-

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep-while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Chapter 3:

            I dreamed...

            at least I remember dreaming...

            But to dream? What is it to dream? 

            And what are dreams? 

            Are dreams revelations from God? Or are they merely images based on what our heart desires the most- like subtle trick messages that the brain sends when we are unconscious. 

            Is it real? 

            When we dream of something, do we dream of something that has been, that is, that will be or that will never be? 

            Is it wrong? Is it wrong to dream?  

            When dreams are based upon lofty ideals and upon wishes that hardly seem within reach. But why then do we dream? Is it to escape the harsh realities the world has laid for us? And or is it merely to deceive the self that there is something better than this- than this open snare of damnation. 

            That's right, humans are damned...there is no god, no heaven nor hell...these were merely concepts of man- man made religion to suit his needs. 

            All because he needed to explain, to justify the existence of this world- the suffering, the pain...everything. He needed an answer to that question and so, who better to provide one than he who raised the question.

            So, in the end, man invented heaven to make life easier to bear, to give us a ray of light in this desolate wasteland. Though in reality- there really is no god, no heaven and there is no escaping that fate…the fate that man is destined to a mindless, endless cycle of madness...

            Though if you thought so, then surely you would have stopped believing...

            "...Vincent?"

            "...Vincent?"

            Light and a voice called from a distance but it disappeared as the darkness settled around me yet again, taking me in- swallowing me like a great tide, drowning me its opacity. 

            **Who are you?**

            _What am I?_

            _I am..._

            **Who are you?**

            **_I...am..._**

            **Who are you?**

            _...I am?_

            ...Vincent...

            ...come back...

            I gasped as I felt my body in a shock- I was in pain. There was so much blood. Everything was blurry and hazy as I sought to sit up in a hurry. But my limbs failed me and I collapsed.

            "Shit! Doc! He's conscious!"

            "Hold him down! Hold him down!"

            I felt pressure…on my arms I think…but I was drugged and I really wasn't too sure of anything that was happening to me. My sight was wavering, hazy... 

            No, not again, not the darkness again…

            I felt my eyes glaze over and I was about to slip into darkness once more when- a shout from near me-

            "Fuck you Vincent Valentine! Don't you dare die on me! Not when I had to drag your sorry arse around…"

            "…Yuffie?"

            "Doc! We're losing him!"

            I don't know if I mouthed the name or it was merely in my head I spoke…but I couldn't hear her anymore, I couldn't hear anything anymore- couldn't see anything anymore…But this had happened before, and if this was dying then I had already died once…

            The sensation of dying?

            What's it like?

            Well, you just find yourself alone. And you see then, your life written as it was by your hand, unravel before you. And you weep that you were not strong enough, that your best was never enough to save anybody. And while you carry the burden of guilt in your heart, it destroys you, marks you with a twisted vision that maybe, maybe I can save them. 

            But, that's man's sickness…they think they can save people…keep people…even if they know full well that the fate of men was never theirs to control.

            But that still doesn't stop them from trying…because inside each one of us, is that tiny spark of hope…and no matter how small that flame is- we go on…and it's not because we have to but because we choose to... 

            We choose to because no mater how bleak and dark the world is, there is goodness…and there's hope in that goodness that we find…that we find in another's heart.

            If the truth is what my heart has spoken then…

            …I must live…

            "He's breathing again!"

            …to fight…

            …to dream…

            …to give flight to others dreams…

            …and, to find peace in another's heart…

Note: whew! Done it! Finished with chapter 3! Yosha! Onwards to chapter 4 *sweatdrop* oh no...the battle with my inner Yuffie ensues yet again...  ;_; I really shouldn't be writing Yuffie POVs... it's so not me... 


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